Russian President Vladimir Putin dismisses any talk of a trade war with the European Union over the European Commission’s probe into the state-controlled gas monopoly Gazprom.

“We have very warm, constructive relations. It is not a trade war,” Putin told reporters after an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in the Russian port city of Vladivostok.

As reported, the European Commission has launched a probe into suspicions that Gazprom is hindering the free flow of gas across the EU and mistreating its customers by linking the cost of gas to oil prices.

Putin links the investigation to European debt crisis, stressing that the European Commission wants to shift internal problems to Russia.

“Primarily, it (the probe) stems from the tough economic situation in the euro zone as we are talking here mainly about Eastern European countries. The European Union is largely subsidising Eastern European economies,” Putin added.

“It seems that now someone in the European Commission decided that we should share a part of this burden … But this approach is not constructive.”

It should be added that Europe buys around a quarter of its gas from Gazprom, typically under long-term contracts whose prices are mainly tied to the price of oil.

Gazprom has said it was armed with legal and political reasons to respond to the investigation, reports Reuters.

Russian President Vladimir Putin paid a visit this Wednesday to Kaliningrad, the westernmost point of Russia, but the reports about his trip in the Russian enclave and over the border in Lithuania were strikingly different.

Latvian airBaltic airline carried 393,312 passengers in July 2017, which is 21% more than the same period last year. The number of passengers carried by airBaltic remains the highest it has ever been in the airline’s history, BNN was informed by the company.

U.S. Air Force Brigade’s Task Force Phoenix helicopters, which are stationed in Latvia as part of Atlantic Resolve operation, will be performing low-altitude flights from 16:00 to 18:00 from Lielvarde to Dobele on Friday, 18 August.

An Indian citizen travelling from Moscow on a bus was caught at Terehovo border control point in Latvia for presenting officers a fake EU family member’s resident card. No criminal process was launched. The person returned to the country he was travelling from.

From 21 August onward, Rural Support Service plans to start accepting applications for projects to receive support from European Maritime and Fisheries Fund’s action plan for development of fisheries in 2014-2020 as part of projects Innovation, Productive Investments in Aquaculture and Fishing and Aquaculture project processing.

As the Estonian Ministry of Finance wishes to boost the reputation and brand of the Baltic country's public sector, it has announced a procurement tender aimed at preparing an action plan for reaching these goals.

Because of Swedbank’s planned IT modernization work scheduled for the night to Thursday, 17 August, there may be short term problems with payment card and internet banking functionality, the bank warns.

If he became chairman of Unity, Economy Minister Arvils Aseradens would mobilize democratic forces to prevent the possibility of either Aivars Lembergs or Nils Usakovs becoming prime ministers, Aseradens said in an interview to 900 seconds programme of LNT.

The co-founder of the U.S. computer software firm Microsoft, Bill Gates, has allocated to charity 4.6 billion U.S. dollars (3.9 billion euros), which is the philanthropist's highest donation since the year 2000.

Latvia and Russia will exchange 7,000 universal permits for international cargo transports in 2017. This will be the largest universal permit volume in the past 15 years, as reported by Road Directorate.